Creative Non-Fiction Writing of Mine(ski stoke!)
Ok, well I wrote this piece for my English 2H class about 10 days ago, and since it's ski related, I thougt I'd post here to both see what you guys think of it and to add to the pre-season stoke. I didn't get that great a grade on it, so I thought a second opinion or 100 would be nice. :D I also submitted it to Aspect Journal, but it didn't get chosen. No hard feeling whatsoever, but I'll post it here to spread the stoke even further. Feel free to let me know what you think, both good and bad; and most of all, enjoy it.
First Tracks
7:00 A.M. Whistler, British Columbia:
A winter storm rages on the upper mountain as rain falls on the base village of Whistler and Blackcomb mountains, the largest ski area in North America, and home to some of the best ski terrain in the world. Dreams of deep powder are abruptly ended by the sound of bombs on the mountain. Today will be a good day. I sit upright in bed, then pad into the kitchen and dial the snow phone while rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Eighteen inches of new snow has fallen overnight on the upper mountain. It is the kind of ski day that dreams are made of. But there is a catch. One hundred plus mile per hour winds are ravaging the mountain and have suspended lift operations until further notice. Coffee brews as breakfast stokes the internal fires and avalanche bombs continue to report from higher up on the mountain where the ski patrol is doing its best to mitigate the risk of avalanches inbounds. By 9:30 A.M. the lower mountain lifts on Whistler/Blackcomb begin to turn and we head out. It is my first day on skis since badly injuring my foot by accidentally dropping off a 25-foot cliff onto icy hardpack in the Whistler alpine two days ago.
We arrive at the mid-mountain lifts to find it snowing hard and blowing even harder. According to the ski patrol, it will be at least one hour before these lifts open, and the terrain that makes Whistler/Blackcomb famous will be accessible. Our options are few: ski back to the base on mediocre terrain and marginal snow conditions or wait it out here in the raging tempest. We choose to wait. We wait, and slowly but surely more and more people get tired of waiting and head down the mountain. Our position in the liftline slowly improves. Locals and powder starved tourists wait somewhat impatiently for the lifts to start to turn in the driving, ever intensifying snowfall. A collective shudder is emitted from the lift line every time avalanche control bombs explode somewhere above us in the murky white. Shouts of joy echo through the liftline as the chairs finally begin to turn around 11:15. Thanks to our persistence, my dad and I grab the second chair and ascend into the storm with one thing on our minds: the glades to the right of the chair.
Disembarking from the chair in snow that is falling in quarter size flakes, we estimate the rate to be about two inches per hour. We then race for the cat track that winds its way along the shoulder of Blackcomb Mountain and will deliver us to the sweet, steep, deep glades funneling down toward the Fitzsimmons Valley and neighboring Whistler Mountain.
The rush for first tracks is on. There is no time to stop and savor the beauty of our surroundings. If you don’t snag first tracks, someone right behind you most certainly will. The Whistler area hasn’t had a big powder day in weeks and the locals are hungry to get into the woods. This is truly competitive powder skiing at its finest. Bombs echo across the valley on Whistler Mountain and rattle us to the core, exploding every few minutes on the ridge lines somewhere above us in the raging storm. After fifteen minutes of racing down the cat track, we pull up to the top of our objective: 2000 vertical feet of steep coastal rain forest drenched with new snow. By some stroke of luck or divine intervention, two tourists from New Jersey have managed to beat two hundred Whistler locals to one of the sweetest runs on Blackcomb Mountain. We savor the moment for as long as we can, mere seconds, looking down on the untracked glades we are about to tear asunder in the coming moments. My dad offers me first tracks down what will be my best run of the season. The snow continues to fall. I drop into the forest and instantly, as though a blanket had been thrown over me, silence envelopes me. The wind calms and fat flakes fall straight down among the magnificent conifers. Arcing fat, fast, round turns through the monstrous old growth pines, using the trees as gates, I gain speed with every turn. My fat skis urging me downward, faster and deeper into the trees. I scream aloud as the snow billows up and around my waist and a season’s worth of angst over ice, rain and frigid temperatures on the east coast melts away with every turn. I marvel at the depth and lightness of the snow. It seems impossible that 3500 vertical feet below me it could be thirty degrees warmer and raining. Ah the wonders of a coastal mountain range! But who cares what it is doing at the base? Up in the subalpine zones of Blackcomb Mountain it is snowing hard and all is right with the world.
Before I know it, I am spit out of the trees and standing on the cat track below the glade, looking up at my tracks snaking through the forest and watching as the heavy snowfall fills them in. Bombs echo from across the valley, piercing the muted sound room that is a heavy snowfall deep in the woods. I take the time to reflect on our trip; an excursion that almost never happened, and then was plagued by injury, bad weather, high freezing levels and a lack of snowfall. Today has compensated for it all. Emerging from the forest several minutes after me, and grinning ear to ear, my dad whoops aloud, marveling at the snowfall.
We exchange few words as we skate off toward the lift for another round of deep, Coast Range powder. We can plan our next route on the lift, now that the race is over. We can enjoy the snow caked trees and the serenity of an old growth forest without being beaten to the prize that only skiers can put a price on: first tracks. Arriving back at the lift, we head back up into the roaring wind and driving snowfall for more. Despite conditions that few people would ever even contemplate venturing out in, all I can think of is how I want it to snow even harder and that I wouldn’t want to trade that run and that day for anything in the world.
Ben Chase
[all text copyright Ben Chase]
